It’s already mid-July. Why does time seem to fly by so quickly? So, just to update you all on my progress I mentioned two weeks ago:
My International MBA has been pretty smooth sailing for the time being. Episode 5 today! Also, definitely helps that I’ve received more material from DU since the beginning of the month, so there’s much more to report on. Please visit & tune in when you can 🙂
Camp NaNoWriMo novel is…going slowly. But surely. The past two weeks have been a little dramatic in the real world, and just so much info coming my way for school. Well, I’m still interested in my novel. Just gotta pound out the words. Aiming for 70k words this time. According to Rachelle Gardner (literary agent), fiction word counts average 80K – 100K.
This coming Tuesday, will begin featuring my short stories in audio form. I tried to read my first story, “Tight Jeans“, as a test run but it sounds too awkward to be read out loud (well, at least by me). That may be a sign for me to go back and revise this story, which was written three years ago (my, I was so young back then, ha).
Hoping there will be more progress revealed by the beginning of August. Hope all has been well in your world, everyone!
My podcast is now LIVE: My International MBA . Please tune in via my new blog/podcast as I chronicle my journey through graduate school. SPREAD THE WORD! I’ll be posting links via my Facebook Page and on Twitter.
Coming soon: all my currently-published short stories (on Scribd) will also be in audio format. Why not listen to a short story by yours truly while you ride the train to work/school?
Instead of doing NaNoWriMo in November this year (or maybe, in addition to?), I am participating in Camp NaNoWriMo for the month of July. Already, I am over 2,000 words in to my new novel. It is quite a hoot of a novel already.
So there you have it: my progress in writing/promoting/etc. More news coming along in this exciting month of July!
I don’t particularly like Day 14’s topic, so here I am back with my regularly schedule topics of my own projects:
OWOP is going strong with Genie and Jose contributing alongside me; of course, would be nice to have more people onboard as well! Love seeing the different photographs from my contributors and would love to see more from others.
Writing projects are steady right now; the first half of this month has been more-or-less a lot of adjusting “back to the daily grind”. It’s a bit futile considering all this will change once again in a few months.
Up bright and early today to get some writing and reading in! Oh, and one last note: finished reading a friend’s draft of his novel last night. Will get a critique together over the weekend.
(Ah-ha! Caught up now! I actually quite like these prompts from The Daily Post. At least they get me writing!)
I stay focused on tasks at hand (e.g., freelance writing, web design, writing letters, etc.) by removing myself from distractions (such as my laptop….). Usually, when I am drafting stories for my writing gigs, I take my AlphaSmart NEO to the dinner table and draft my story that way. If I sat at the computer doing that, I’d become too distracted with Twitter, email, etc. That’s the main reason why I bought the NEO in the first place — less distraction!
Now, when it comes to website editing, I close down all my Internet tabs (that are distracting) and set myself a time limit on web work. I can only stare so long at the computer screen after all…
With non-technological tasks, I just make sure I have some relaxing music playing in the background and I can focus pretty well on whatever I’m doing.
Since I’m on the topic of focus…today I finally had the chance to draft a new story series outline for my writing client. Thank goodness for my family and their movie suggestions! Have yet to crack open my novels-in-progress for writing, but 10K days are coming up. Also, shall have some write-ins soon. Must coordinate schedules!
Well, I certainly disappeared for the month of December, but you know how the end of the year goes with the holiday frenzy. I had wanted to participate in National Novel Finishing Month, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be for this month. I added on only 300some words to my February 2009 novel, but I will add more in this next year.
This year in writing has been meaningful to say the least. I attended a few online classes via Gotham Writers’ Workshop to learn a little more about freelancing and blogging (albeit I’ve been in the blogging world for 10-11 years now, but I wanted to see what the instructor could advise upon).
I discovered the world of Fiverr and have landed a few small gigs via that website; have resulted in one customer giving me continuous work for short stories for an ESL class. The pay isn’t much but I have really enjoyed working on my writing as opposed to being stuck at an office as a minion (oh, but really, no offense to my previous employer at all; they are wonderful people there).
I also entered into my first writing contest, perhaps the first ever (I can’t recall whether or not I entered any writing contests in my adolescence). Granted, I didn’t win, but it was still a good experience working through my submission and having local friends critique the piece for me.
For 2011, I will do much more with my writing: complete the two drafts that have been unfinished for 1-2 years now (started those drafts in 2009), read more books (only completed 13 books this year due to the incident from late January), find more clients to write for, and, well, who knows where else I will go with my writing?
In other realms of my life, 2010 taught me a lot and perhaps was a year of enlightenment in more ways than one. 2011 is already shaping up to be another grand year with my entrance into business school and another big move on the way.
As I reflect on my life from this decade, I see I have really come a long way from the teenage years. We all realize this at some point in our lives, but I notice this year has been a huge step for me. Onwards I go into this new year!
(Oh, by the way, I have also created blogs at Tumblr and Posterous. My Tumblr account so far consists of amusing conversation tidbits, the occasional picture, and some poetry. If you are interested in joining me on my “One Word, One Picture” Project for 2011, check out the Posterous site!)
